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It had started with a harmless invitation. A casual “You should stay the night sometime,” and somehow, Raine had ended up waking up in Zelos Wilder’s mansion for the first time.
They weren’t living together– not even close. Their relationship was still fresh, newly acknowledged, and still a little unsteady in that delicate, exciting way. But after White Day, things had changed. They were seeing more of each other. Talking more. Laughing more. Falling into something that neither of them had yet dared name aloud.
And now here she was, making her way down his lavish staircase, wearing the cutest pair of jammies she owned, after what could only be the best night of sleep she’d ever had. She still wasn’t sure what surprised her more: that she’d agreed to stay the night, or that she hadn’t hated waking up here.
There had been no awkwardness, no regrets. Just quality time in good company, and a lot of warm cuddling.
Of course, considering who her partner was, that warmth also came with a side of chaos.
As she made her way to the kitchen– hair slightly tousled, vision still blurry with remnants of sleep– she found her morning coffee already waiting on the counter. Served in her favourite mug and piping hot. Sweet. Thoughtful.
And inside it, a very large, very fake plastic spider.
Raine stared at it, deadpan.
“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She didn’t scream. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink.
Instead, she plucked the insect out by one leg, held it up to the light like a mildly interesting artifact, and then glanced casually over her shoulder.
“Very subtle,” she called out.
There was an unmistakable snicker as Zelos poked his head out from behind the dining room table, revealing his hiding place, “You didn’t shriek? I’m honestly disappointed.”
“I’m not a child, Zelos.”
“Come on! I spent, like, five minutes positioning that thing just right!”
She smirked to herself as she dumped out her ruined drink and began prepping a new brew, already plotting her revenge.
—
Having her stay over for the first time was cause for celebration, according to Zelos, and there was no better way to kick things off than him making them a delicious breakfast. By the time he had finished cooking, the spider had been relocated– with care and precision– to the one place he absolutely wouldn’t expect it: directly inside his toilet bowl. A small sticky note had been added to the inside of the seat cover for good measure, featuring her neatly scrawled handwriting: Try harder.
It was almost too perfect.
Soon after their morning meal, when nature decided to call, a high-pitched yelp echoed through the house, followed by a string of unintelligible curses.
Raine smirked as she settled on the couch with a thick book in hand. Oh, the sweet sound of revenge.
Round one: hers.
—
By the time Zelos reappeared, he was toweling off his hands and muttering something about “cruel and unusual punishment.” His expression shifted the moment he spotted his kind-of-sort-of-totally girlfriend lounging in the living room, flipping through the pages of her novel so quickly that he couldn’t be sure that she was actually reading. The infuriatingly composed look on her face only made his frown deepen.
“That was so mean,” he whined, pointing an accusatory finger.
Raine didn’t even bother to look up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The spider. The toilet. The psychological damage.”
There was a beat of silence before she calmly responded, “I thought you liked surprises.”
The redhead groaned dramatically as he dropped to his knees on the ground beside her. Grovelling wasn’t a good look on him. “You don’t play fair, babe.”
“I play smarter. You should’ve known better.”
“That’s what makes it worse!” he cried. “You’re out here playing twelve-dimensional chess while I’m just trying to be cute and mildly chaotic.”
“You’ve got the second part down, that I can confirm.”
He narrowed his eyes. “This means war.”
“You declared war the moment you put that thing in my mug.”
Slowly, Zelos rose to his feet once more, a wide grin spreading to his face as he crackled devilishly. “Then I hope you packed reinforcements, sweetheart. Because it’s only just begun.”
—
Zelos bided his time.
While Raine was enjoying her quiet morning devoid of her usual routine, he slipped into the guest room– technically his room, since, in true gentleman fashion, he’d insisted she use it while she was staying over– and smirked like a kid on mischief patrol. Her overnight bag sat neatly in the corner, just begging for sabotage.
“Let’s see how clever you are when your socks don’t match and your underwear’s inside out,” he muttered gleefully to himself.
He flipped every single item of clothing– shirt, pants, underthings, all of it– inside out with meticulous care, only briefly pausing when he reached a particularly lacy pair of light-blue panties. Holding them up between two fingers, he admired them with a low whistle.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “Didn’t peg her for the frilly type… Noted. Appreciated.”
With a satisfied nod and positively vibrating with anticipation, he zipped the bag shut and quickly scurried out of the room, hearing her slowly begin to make her way up the stairs. Nonchalantly, he leaned his elbows on the banister, his eyes trailing her up to the second floor.
Her look of skepticism didn’t go unnoticed, but he certainly wasn’t about to comment.
—
When Raine finally emerged from the room a few minutes later, dressed and perfectly composed, Zelos perked up immediately from where he was perched, drumming his fingers against the marble handrail like an overexcited cat.
“Well?” he asked, eyes gleaming. “Notice anything… special about your wardrobe today?”
She gave him a slow, unimpressed once-over. Then, without a word, she reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out a pair of inside-out panties. Casually, she tossed them at his head, “Let me guess: peak comedy in your books?”
Zelos blinked. “I mean– Yes? C’mon, that’s classic prank material!”
“You turned everything inside out. Even my socks.”
He tried– really tried– not to laugh, but the urge was stronger than him, “What gave it away?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I’m not blind.”
Without so much as a sigh, she made her way back downstairs to continue her reading, leaving Zelos with that very same pair of lacy blue underwear in his hands and the distinct feeling that, once again, he was the only one amused.
Still, he grinned. “Just wait, hunny. I’m only warming up.”
Raine didn’t even turn around. “Wonderful. I’ll try to contain my excitement.”
—
The rest of the day passed without much fanfare. Surprisingly.
Zelos, though uncharacteristically quiet, was clearly scheming– brows furrowed, humming thoughtfully, eyes occasionally flicking toward Raine like he was debating which prank to unleash next. The half-elf, for her part, didn’t ask. She went about her afternoon with measured calm, letting him stew in his thoughts, offering no hints that she knew exactly what he was up to… or that she had already begun planning her own revenge.
That evening, after dinner and some idle conversation, Raine excused herself to the bathroom to wash up before bed. She moved through her routine with habitual precision– until she reached for her moisturizer.
It was sitting where she’d left it on the bathroom vanity, but something was off. The bottle looked… fuller. Cleaner. Suspiciously so.
She picked it up, and instantly frowned.
Definitely not hers.
Unscrewing the cap, she took a cautious sniff. It smelled sweet and milky, a striking contrast to her usual fragrance-free products. With a wrinkle to her nose, she murmured, “Whipped cream?”
With a frustrated sigh, she rifled through her overnight bag and, sure enough, found her actual moisturizer nestled beneath everything else. She wasn’t truly upset, but a small part of her was starting to get frustrated by the pranks and jokes. Besides, how could Zelos really think she wouldn’t notice? She was, if nothing else, thorough.
Without a word, she put the fake bottle back in place, applied her real product, and stepped out into the bedroom where Zelos was already sprawled across the bed like he owned it. Which, considering it was his own, did indeed give him privilege to do so.
“Your turn to freshen up,” she said, voice calm and pleasant, though perhaps a bit too sing-songy to not be suspicious.
Zelos arched a brow at her sudden sweetness, but didn’t question it. He stood, stretched dramatically, and sauntered toward the ensuite bathroom. “Don’t miss me too much,” he teased as he shut the door.
Raine simply smiled to herself and took the seat he vacated, casually crossing her legs at the ankle, waiting.
After all, her brilliant masterpiece was about to unfold.
—
Zelos, humming off-key to himself, stepped into the shower with all the confidence of a man who had spent the entire day being mildly disruptive and believed himself invincible. Letting the near-scalding water melt him into relaxation, he reached for what he assumed was his usual shampoo. The bottle was the same shape. The same brand. The same weight in his palm.
What it was not, however, was the same substance.
The moment he massaged it into his hair, a strange, slick resistance caught his attention. His brows furrowed. It didn’t foam.
And then he caught the smell.
“…Vanilla sugar?”
He paused, blinking water out of his eyes. Then looked down.
His palms were coated in shimmering pink and gold glitter.
“No.”
He frantically turned his head under the water, scrubbing at his scalp. But no matter how much he rinsed, the glitter only spread, catching the light like the cursed sparkles were actively taunting him.
“No, no, no–”
He burst out of the bathroom moments later, dripping wet, a towel slung low around his hips, and his hair– his glorious, once-pristine hair– now clinging to him in gleaming strands of disco-ball doom.
“Raine!”
She glanced up from where she was calmly flipping through a book on the bed, “Yes?”
“What is this?!” He shrieked, arms flailing toward his glittery scalp, “I look like I lost a fight with a fairy queen!”
“You told me to remind you to try something new once in a while,” she replied smoothly, not even bothering to look up.
“In battle! In cooking! Not in my hygiene routine!”
Zelos stomped toward his dresser, yanking drawer after drawer open– only to find them completely, utterly empty. “What the hell is going on here?”
Raine finally looked over the top of her book, her expression blank. “Problem?”
“My clothes,” he said, voice flat. “Where are they?”
“Which ones?”
“All of them!”
“Oh.” She shut the book and sat up straighter, a wide grin breaking out across her face. “I hid them.”
“You what?!”
“Well, I figured since you were so curious about my nightly routine, it was only fair I get curious about yours.”
Zelos stood motionless, stunned, the towel slipping a bit lower on his hips as he tried to process his humiliation. “You turned me into a disco ball,” he lamented. “I look like a rejected contestant from the Meltokio ballroom league!”
Huffing, he rushed out his bedroom in search of all his missing articles of clothing– his precious babies. He stopped dead in his tracks the moment he pulled the door shut behind him, taking in the scene before him.
Strewn haphazardly around his house were the entire contents of his dresser and closet, and his jaw dropped at the sight. Shirts were all over the floor, pants, tied together at the legs, decorated the banister like some sort of garland, socks adorned every door handle, and his designer boxers hung without shame from the chandelier.
How had she managed to pull it all off in so little time? He hadn’t even been in the shower for ten minutes! Giggling from downstairs provided the much needed answer: she’d had some help from his trusty house staff.
“Unbelievable,” he sulked, returning to the bedroom. “I’ve been pranked in my own home. Betrayed by the woman I love.”
He found said woman straightening up the contents of her overnight bag, packing away her toiletries, and closing it with a determined zip. Her jaw was firmly set, and her eyes shone with the typical teacherly ‘I will not entertain any nonsense’ look. Before he could even ask a single question, she was speaking.
“You should get some sleep. I won’t be here in the morning.”
Zelos froze mid-step, like someone had turned him to stone, “…Huh?”
“I’m heading out early. I didn’t want to wake you, so I’ve already collected my things.”
The tension in his body changed, subtle but unmistakable. “Wait. What are you talking about all of a sudden?” His eyes trailed after her as she placed her bag down beside his room door. “Are you… mad?”
“No.”
“You sure?” His voice pitched a little higher. “Because that’s exactly what you’d say if you were mad.”
“I’m not mad.” She finally turned to face him, and her expression was unreadable. Perfectly controlled and detached. “I just think maybe we should take a step back.”
“A step back?”
She gave the softest of shrugs. “I’ve been seeing someone else. I meant to tell you earlier, but I couldn’t find the right opportunity to.”
BOOM.
The silence hit like a cracked mirror– sudden, splintered, and impossible to ignore.
Zelos’ mouth hung open like a fish, his mind gone absolutely blank. After what felt like forever, he choked out a broken question. “…You’ve what?”
“I’ve been seeing someone else,” Raine repeated. “He’s consistent. Reliable. We’ve actually been spending a lot of time together.”
Zelos staggered back a half step like she’d physically shoved him. “But… But we– I mean– We’ve been spending so much time together! We were even low-key making out earlier!”
“I was confused.”
“Confused?!”
She refused to acknowledge his question and instead continued with her explanation. “His name’s Logic. You’d like him, I’m sure.”
Another bout of silence threatened to erupt as Zelos’ heart visibly crumbled like a pastry in the hands of a toddler. Was he really about to let this wonderful woman slip away from him so easily? When he’d grown so fond of her in so little time? No. No he was not.
Finally, he snapped.
“Oh, come on, Raine!” he blurted, hands flying up in pure exasperation. “You’re seeing someone else?! After everything we’ve been through together and after we’ve been kind of a thing for the last few months?! This is emotional whiplash! You can’t just drop that on me and then expect to stay the night and walk out on me in the morning with my heart in tow!”
He paused, exhaled hard, and ran both hands through his hair before trying again.
“…Okay. Look.” He stepped in front of her, taking her hands in his shaking ones. “If you’re serious– if you’re really ending this–I just need to say something first.”
He took a breath.
“I know I’m a lot. Too much, maybe. I know I joke around, and I mess things up, and I act like a lovesick idiot 90% of the time. But I meant everything I said to you. I’m trying, Raine. I’m really trying with you. And if there’s even the smallest part of you that thinks we’re worth it, please… don’t leave. Not like this.”
There was a pause. A long, terrible pause.
Raine tilted her head as she stepped forward, and for a minute Zelos worried she may smack him off the back of the head and berate him for lecturing her and being so hard-headed. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time she’d treated him that way.
Very calmly, she freed her hands from his grasp and lightly placed them on his shoulders as she leaned up to whisper in his ear: “…April Fools.”
Zelos reeled back immediately. His expression twisted, horrified and betrayed all over again. “Y-You– That was a prank?!”
The half-elf smiled, devilish and satisfied. “Mhm. But it’s nice to know you’d fight for me.”
She pressed a quick kiss to his jaw before she made her way back to the bed, hips swaying ever-so-slightly with smugness as she walked, leaving Zelos somewhere between heart attack and hysterics.
He slapped both hands over his face as he groaned in defeat. “…I’m never trusting that woman again, no matter how in love with her I am.”